Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Greatest Gift of All {sunday school craft}

I teach First Grade PSR {Parish School of Religion...Sunday School in the Catholic church} with 3 amazing, godly women who I just love to pieces. They make the stories of the bible come alive for our little first graders and I love that they say yes to my craft projects. Love using the creative talents God gave me for His glory!

Along with being creative comes messiness - ha! And late nights. And lots of tweaking of projects to see if they'll work for little hands. I saw the idea for this one while searching online one day, but I've lost the link, so if this happens to be your original project idea, please let me know so I can give you proper credit!!

So I prepped 20 of these and finished 3 so our first graders could give them to the priests at our church. I wanted them to swaddle baby Jesus themselves, so I attached a mini wooden craft ball to a tiny popsicle stick and just added a drop of hot glue to attach the string of yarn to the back of the popsicle stick and they did the rest. They drew baby Jesus' face and some even added a halo. I used a mini cupcake liner to place baby Jesus in. Tissue paper and crinkle paper and brown cardstock and glitter and clear cups. Chenille stems finished it all off. Some kids wrote the message themselves and some asked us to help them so it would fit on the little strip of blue paper. But this is what made it all worthwhile...
"My mom is going to LOVE this!" from one of the sweet boys as he worked so hard to put it all together.

The girls loved making smiley baby Jesus ornaments. My favorite: "Close your eyes mama, I've got a surprise for you!" just as she was about to hand it to her mom.

This particular Sunday, Lance was in Wisconsin for work so it was just the littles and me. Crazy chaos trying to get everyone ready and out the door on time. Yelling instead of patience, I'm ashamed to admit. But then Hudson said, "Grace, you look pretty!" and it sure put us all in a calmer, more appreciative mood. Never underestimate the power of your words.

Noonie and Papa J invited us to join them for lunch after church. I tried to get a pic of the littles with them, but as you can see........................

So in all the chaos of the holiday season, let us {ME!} remember what it's really all about. Jesus. Plain and simple!

Mother. Daughter. Wife. Sister. Friend. Constantly amazed by God's works in my life. Believer that happiness comes from treasuring the little things in life. Crazy about pancakes, peanut butter, and animal crackers, not together of course! Seeker of one-of-a-kind vintage finds and designs. Always planning a party in my head. An old soul with a passion for creativity.